Getting fired up about quality

In December 2024, the CQI published an open letter to the UK government calling for its planned industrial strategy to be much stronger on improving the quality of what we produce and how we produce it. Specifically, we want to see the final industrial strategy include a focus on the following: 

• growing quality skills across the economy   
• growing awareness of quality management  
• growing a culture of quality within UK industry  
• aligning voluntary standards and regulation with competitiveness  
• aligning industry and the public sector 

Mobilising the quality ecosystem 

We are not calling for money but advocating for the existing quality ecosystem and quality thinking to be made more accessible to industry.

In this respect, there is good news because there are many excellent initiatives, a solid quality ecosystem and no shortage of sensible voices in the UK. All with a genuine interest in helping the UK to become sustainably competitive.

Vince Desmond, CEO, CQI

Sector initiatives from the aerospace and defence ‘SC21’ programme to the construction Get It Right Initiative provide useful benchmarks in how industry can successfully improve itself. I never understand why governments are inclined to set up new initiatives with unusual-sounding names instead of supporting existing capabilities.

A good example of this was Be the Business set up by the UK government under Cameron’s premiership (2010-2016) to support competitiveness and productivity in the SME market. Why do this when there is a strong system of existing bodies and initiatives which could be mobilised? I suppose tricks and unnecessary extras have greater appeal to the media.

Embracing practical solutions and a trusted quality profession 

Sensible voices are not hard to come by either. Take John Seddon and his recent Rethinking Regulation: a Manifesto, Vanguard Consulting Ltd which calls for regulation to step back from inspection to facilitating quality outcomes. We still haven't learned that the government can’t inspect quality, competitiveness or productivity in UK industry or public services.  

Then there is Lord Darzi’s recent report on the NHS for Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which makes a compelling case for quality improvement. (In 2008 Lord Darzi previously proposed that improving quality provides better outcomes and productivity in his High-quality care for all: NHS Next Stage Review final report.)

Additionally, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Safer Complex Systems programme led by Dame Judith Hackett is doing good work on complex systems while trying to figure out how to get society, including government and regulators, to think from a systems perspective.   

So, my call is for policymakers to forget the tricks and unnecessary extras and lean into the sensible quality voices and expertise of the quality ecosystem and initiatives that we already have. Even better, how about asking all MPs to pass a test on systems thinking and problem solving?